About Frost

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Frost has been delivering a unique combination of products, service and expertise to the bi-state region for nearly a century. Three generations of the Frost family have guided the distribution company, focused on the electrical supply, industrial, automation, tools, safety and voice/data industries. Frost's knowledgeable staff has decades of collective industry experience serving customers from its headquarters in Maryland Heights, MO and its five full-service branch locations in the city of St. Louis; O'Fallon and Columbia, MO; and in Collinsville and Lebanon, IL.

Frost - Providing unmatched supply, support and service for 100 years.

Our Mission & Vision

Frost Electric Supply takes pride in providing quality products, innovative solutions, and high-quality service to the communities we serve. Frost's mission is to provide a working environment where employees and customers can enjoy the rewards of a profitable, growing corporation while creating a fun atmosphere where employees take pride in their work.

Our vision is to be the leader in the business-to-business distribution of electrical supplies

Our Values

Commitment to our Customers - Frost Electric Supply Company is committed to quality and cost-effective, timely, creative, and technical excellence in serving the needs of our customers.

Commitment to our Employees - We are committed to providing opportunities for our employees to develop and succeed professionally. Each employee is valued, unique, and makes a contribution to our corporate mission. Each employee is committed to excellent performance. Employees are expected to treat each other with consideration, trust, and respect, and to work together as a team.

Commitment to Teamwork - Frost Electric Supply Company believes teamwork can and should produce more than the sum of individual efforts. Team members must be reliable and committed to the team as well as to the Company. Decisions are expected to be reached participatively whenever possible. Open and honest communication by employees with each other as well as with customers and other external parties is essential to building trust and respect, and in producing success.

History of Frost

In 1909, the Kusel Telephone Supply Company was founded in St. Louis, MO. The small company assembled wooden wall phones, which consisted of a box, hand crank, mouthpiece and receiver. Seeing a bright future in electricity, which was first used in St. Louis in 1878, Kusel stopped selling telephones in 1918 and began selling light bulbs, drop cord sockets, flashlights, batteries, knobs, tubes and small wire. To keep the company a float during The Great Depression, Kusel sold Christmas tree light sets imported from Japan. That same year, a youngster named Cyrus J. Frost began working at Kusel, which at the time had about eight employees. The number of Kusel employees dwindled in the 1930's to about three and it wasn't until 1940 that Frost was able to purchase the company. It was World War II, and Frost would travel by train to New York City and Chicago to reach manufacturers and purchase merchandise to sell. In 1948, he officially changed the company's name to Frost and, soon after, the company would release its first supply catalog.

In 1959 Frost's son, Dale Frost, began working at the company. In the 1970's Frost moved from its former location at 2480 Locust Street to its new location at 54 Weldon Parkway. In the 1980's Dale Frost's sons, John and Jeff, began working for the company and would later take over managing the company.

Frost opened its first branch location in Collinsville, IL in 1988. In 1990, Frost created its Voice & Data division and five years later moved to its current building at 2429 Schuetz Road.

In 1997, Frost opened its automation division and in 1998 opened a branch location in Columbia, MO. In 2007, Frost opened a branch location in St. Louis City, where the company first started nearly a century earlier.

Examples of buildings constructed using supplies from Frost include: the original Busch Stadium, the St. Louis Arena, the Metropolitan Building, Union Station and numerous area hospitals, factories, commercial buildings and hotels.